Newsweek - USA (2020-05-22)

“Our species is under threat.” » P.

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In a perfect world, if your income no longer

stretches to cover your living expenses, you’d just

dip into your emergency fund to tide you over. But

this is the real world, and in the real world years

of rising costs (from health care to education and

everything in between) have made it difficult to

save the minimum three months’ worth of living

expenses that financial advisors recommend. Pew

found that nearly half of Americans fall short of that

benchmark, including 77 percent of lower-income

families and one in four upper-income households.

If belt-tightening and the temporary breaks on bills

that some companies are offering isn’t enough to tide

you over, where can you turn for extra cash until your

income and the economy bounce back? While none

of the options for fast cash are great—no free lunch

and all that; borrowing always comes

at a cost—some are more awful than

others (looking at you, payday loans).

Here are a handful of better choices,

who they’re most suited to and how

best to make them work for your needs.

as the financial impact of the coronavirus

pandemic deepens, tens of millions of Ameri-

cans are having trouble making ends meet and need

access to cash, fast, to pay their bills. And their num-

bers are growing daily. By late April, half of Ameri-

cans had lost a job, had their work hours reduced

or were living with someone who had, up from

18 percent in March, according to an NPR/PBS/

Marist poll. And 3.2 million more workers applied

for unemployment benefits during the week that

ended May 2, bringing the most recent seven-week

total to a record 33 million.

Relief efforts have helped—from stimulus checks

and beefed-up unemployment insurance to breaks

on student loan payments and other bills—but not

nearly enough for a lot of families. Reports show

that many are already behind on rent,

mortgage and credit card payments.

Meanwhile, about one-third of Amer-

icans say they’re struggling to pay all

of their current bills in full, according

to a Pew Research survey.

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